Hence,
the particular prospective on relationships supplied by this model integrates in
an innovative synthesis Sullivan's interpersonal prospective,Horney'sfocus on experience and theTheory
of Object Relationships.(The latterhas
much in common with our approach,but excludes an prospective on relationshipsfrom the experience of the "contact boundary".)

Gestalt
psychotherapy is so bound up in this "betweeness"that we are led tosubstitute
the concept of the self-determination of the organism with that of the
self-determination of the relationship,the concept of social regulationwith thatof the
self-regulation of the group.It is precisely the evolution of the relationship,
in its constant fluctuations between the dimensions of the 'I' and the 'you', of
the 'I' and the group, that leads to the creation ofsocial living which can be considered self-regulating.

The
first of thetwo essays which
follow examines the divergences with psychoanalysis by expounding the
hermeneutical epistemology of Gestalt, whilst the second is dedicatedto clarifying the theory of the "organism-environment field".The
latter, in its role as background and framework in which the relationship occurs,is
a container which is by no means inert,but is instead a place of unceasing
productive tensions,and from which vivid figures emerge, objects of contact, in
a continualflux.

Although
initially influenced by it,the concept of the field in Gestalt psychotherapy
goes beyond Lewin's configuration .Here the field is the perception of dynamic
forces in interaction rather than experience of the boundary, and it also
differentiates itself clearly from systemic thought,which is focused on
controlling the relationship and not onexperiencingthe relationship.

Theinitial, theoretical part of the book ends with a work which underlines
the time dimension of the experience of "being-here with" the other,
and it goes beyond the concept of "Da-sein" expressed in Heidegger's
writings.In so doing it reveals the essence of the gestaltic prospective
concerning the integration of "otherness".

The
phenemenological tension of the first four studies becomes fundamental clinical
reflection in the essay upon the self which follows.It also forges a link with
the second part of the text, which deals with the concrete reality of mental
suffering today.

From
the four contributions that deal with strictly clinical mattersa concrete gestaltic model of intervention with seriously disturbed
patients emerges. The treatment of the seriously disturbed poses a challenge for
all types of psychotherapy in the third millenium, both in traditional private
setting and in psychiatric community structures. This section also includes an
essay that deals withthe question
of psycho- pharmacology.

The
book closeswithan essay that uses gestaltic hermeneutics and clinical practice to
analyse living in society , an important component in all types of psychotherapybut which is often only taken implicitly into consideration.It examines
the dynamic interactionin
whichthe subject and thePolis are constantly engaged, in search of an adaptation which is never a
form of conformity, but is creative and "politically" possible.

Three
contextual elements have determined the nature of this work.

The
first concerns the way in which it was conceived. The essays that make up this
work express ideas elaborated within a group, not a collection of individual
writings. We have put our belief inthe
self regulation of the group into practice and, as Frederick Perls wrote in the
original introduction toGestalt
Therapy(the fundamental text of
this approach, written in collaboration with Ralph Hefferline and Paul Goodman),
"our differences were numerous, but by bringing them to light rather than
politely concealing them, most times a solution emerged that none of us expected".
The gestaltic method is above all a method that allows things to happen, the
ever-new creation of adequate solutions to the degree in which everyone is
present,in the here and now of the relationship, at the "contact boundary".We
have therefore preferred in our Institute to remain faithful to the attractionof a choral and phenomenological representation of a reality to which the
founders of Gestalt psychotherapy bear witness. From our point of view it a
fundamental historical and epistemological element.

The
second aspect concerns the relationship between Gestalt theory and Gestalt
psychotherapy.

Created
in the fifties in an anti-institutional socio-political context, it was
expounded in a work ( Gestalt Therapy , ) which is difficult to understand and,
at the same time, extremely evocative. Its way of proposing the theory generates
experiences rather than supplies information; it stimulates the reader's
creativity rather than fosters the introjection of concepts. In the course of
the fifty years that have followed, the relationship between Gestalt therapists
and this work has been difficult, having been focused more on a sort of
irritation caused byits difficult
but rewarding logic than on the cultural background from which it emerged or on
the genial anthropology that it proposes.On the other hand, theoretical and
epistemological contextualization were not very fashionable in the Humanistic
Movement, of which Gestalt psychotherapy was part.Anything with a theoretical
flavour, which was therefore cerebral and consequently almost "antihuman"
, was thrown out like the bathwater, baby and all. Some Gestalt therapists have
created atheory justifying the
lack of theory (as if anyclinical
intervention were possible without referring to a theory of human nature -albeit
implicit-describing its
development and pathology), whilst others have found it easier to assert that
Gestalt therapy does not possess sufficient theoretical instruments and
therefore is to be integrated with something else.The hermeneutical dialogue
which has animated our studies has led us to discover, in the theoretical map
with which Gestalt psychotherapy was founded, concepts and ideas, that have
never been sufficiently developed till now, and that arecapable of giving answers to today's cultural and clinical problems.

The
third element is a heartfelt "thank you" to the students of the
Institute. Their intellectual curiosity has stimulated and continues to
stimulate usto give comprehensible
and in- depth answers to their questions and to their need for personal growth.

Besides,
if they had notobliged us to write
down the things that we teach, we would not have easily overcome our resistance
to doing so.

This
book is dedicated to Gestalt psychotherapists, in the hope that it will enhance
their sense of the beauty of their clinical work,and that it will help them to
progressivelybond it in the
theoretical profoundity of this approach.It is aimed at anybody who, to whatever
extent, is interested in human relationships, to assistthem in creatively modulating their relationship both with theory and
clinical practice.

3.1. Aims of the Therapeutic Intervention with a Seriously Disturbed Patient

3.2. Aim 1: The Terapeutic Environment

3.3. Aim 2: Differentiating the Self and the Environment

3.4. Aim 3: The Orientation and the Rithm of the Self

3.5. Aim 4: Differentiating One's Own Needs

3.6. The Individualized Therapeutic Project

References

9.Gestaltic Psychopharmacology, by Paola Argentino

1. Selfregulation of the Relationship and Neuromodulation

2. Times and Modes of Contact

3. From the Pharmacological "Compliance" to Gestaltic "Transfering"

4. Pharmacological "Transfering" and Disfunctional Contact Modalities
of the Patient

5. "No-Compliance" and Disfunctional Contact Modalities of the
Therapist

6. Pharmacological "Transfering" and Functional Contact Modalities of
the Therapist: An Example

7. Resistance and Creative Adjustment

8. Final Considerations

References

10.From
the "Discomfort of Civilization" to Creative Adjustment.The
Relationship between Individual and Community in Psychotherapy in the Third
Millemnium,
by Margherita Spagnuolo Lobb, Giovanni Salonia, Antonio Sichera

1. The "Discomfort of Civilization" as Definition of an Inconceavable
Relationship

2. The Intuitions of an Heretic

3. Gestalt Psychotherapy and the Relationship between Individual and Community

4. Creative Adjustment as Overcoming of the "Discomfort of Civilization"